Among the weaknesses of The Rake’s Progress, as acknowledged
by the composer in the booklet accompanying his 1964 CBS – now
Sony – recording of the opera, is the fact that “the Epilogue
is a little too ‘nifty’ (as Americans say)”. I wonder if Americans
really did say “nifty” in the sixties; and if they did, was
the sense in which Stravinsky was using the word quite the right
one? What would we say now? Slick? Whatever one might think
of this Epilogue, it seems to have taken quite a few of the
2010 Glyndebourne audience by surprise, just as it will have
done at La Fenice when the work was first performed in 1951.
Perhaps Stravinsky was thinking as much of the libretto – a
remarkable piece of work by W H Auden and Chester Kallman –
as he was of the music, but nifty or not, the Epilogue is typical
of an opera in which the sheer brilliance of much of the music
is a defining feature. The end of the brothel scene – brilliantly
staged here with a circular procession around the bed on which
is revealed the hideous Mother Goose, monstrously copulating
atop an almost comatose Tom Rakewell – is a further example
of the composer’s remarkable imagination and daring, as is the
pastiche baroque sarabande that accompanies Baba the Turk as
she reveals her beard – complete with stripper’s teasing – to
her adoring public. There are weaker moments of course, both
musically and dramatically. I regret the composer’s decision
to accompany much of the graveyard scene, where Nick Shadow
loses his prize and Tom loses his reason, with the dryness of
the harpsichord. Musically the opera is closest, in Stravinsky’s
output, to a work such as the Symphony in C, but the fact is
that The Rake’s Progress does seem to qualify for that
much used but so rarely accurate label, a work unlike any other.

The origins are to be found in the series of Hogarth paintings
entitled A Rake’s Progress. In an interview on the
DVD, David Hockney confirms that his stage designs, based almost
entirely on parallel and crossing straight lines, were inspired
by techniques used when Hogarth’s paintings were later engraved
and published in book form. This hatching produces a visual
texture at once rich, varied and deeply evocative. And it is
everywhere, on the backs of the cards used to determine Tom’s
fate near the end of the opera, even on the shoehorn Nick hands
to him as he helps him get ready to go out in pursuit of a wife.
Such attention is only one example of why opera is such an expensive
art form. There is spontaneous applause as the curtain rises
on the auction scene, where everything is in shades of grey.
The only colour to be seen is in the costumes of the auctioneer,
and later Baba, when she emerges. I feel sure that at the end
of the run Miah Persson will have hidden the dress and cloak
she wears for much of the opera in her suitcase, so beautiful
is it. Only Bedlam disappoints me, its inmates, grotesquely
masked, ranked in strange boxes behind the action, practically
immobile. I can’t quite see what Hockney was driving at there.
The production is directed by John Cox. He has created a marvellous
stage experience, full of touching and sometimes near-hilarious
detail.

Nick Shadow speaks directly to the audience in Act 2, which
justifies his winking and gurning at them at various points
throughout, usually to show what a dupe his master is, and always
to delicious comic effect. His costume, and in particular his
hairdo, is ridiculous, yet strangely disquieting. Matthew Rose
plays the part to the hilt, making clear from his very first
scene that Tom is a pushover and that Anne is where the danger
lies. He manages adeptly the comic aspects of the role, at least
as far as the graveyard scene, when everything changes. It’s
possible to imagine a darker voice for Shadow, but I find his
assumption totally convincing. Topi Lehtipuu as Tom is very
fine too. He captures very well indeed Tom’s love for Anne,
which is genuine and will be his salvation, but which he abandons
by weakness of will. Miah Persson is adorable as Anne. She brings
out beautifully the vulnerability of the character, but crucially
she has brilliantly understood the steely determination present
in Anne’s music, and acts it out, both physically and vocally,
to perfection. The smaller roles are beautifully taken, and
the chorus sings and acts splendidly. Time and again I was struck,
as never before, by the sheer beauty of the sound of this work,
and the orchestra plays magnificently under the inspiring direction
of Vladimir Jurowski.

The film has been made by a largely French team and apparently
for French television. It has been sensitively done, remaining
faithful to the action throughout. As you watch this film, and
savour the remarkable and delicious detail that has gone into
the production, you can avail yourself, if you wish, of subtitles
in English or in three other languages. You can choose between
two different sound setups. Before watching, you can read in
the booklet the useful essay and synopsis by Mike Ashman. And
afterwards, you can easily locate your favourite passages among
the forty-eight chapters usefully provided. Alternatively, if
you really want to, you can watch the two extras, but as is
so often the way of things, these are of limited interest and
value, a series of short interviews mixed in with extracts from
the show. Inevitably the performers spend a fair amount of time
telling us how wonderful all the others are, and if that sounds
cynical let me say that they are indeed wonderful, all of them,
and so are no doubt totally sincere. Even David Hockney, his
Yorkshire accent still attractively present, doesn’t really
have much to tell us, but Jurowski at one point does make the
interesting point that it is difficult for the cast to avoid
becoming a kind of “singing accompaniment to the set” as “the
set is quite difficult to compete with”.

There are other performances of The Rake’s Progress
on DVD, including an earlier incarnation of this same production,
finely sung but now superseded technically. Then there is the
production from La Monnaie in Brussels, garishly updated to
1950s America. Rapturously received in many quarters, you are
likely to love it or hate it. Either way, there is no question,
this life-enhancing DVD from Glyndebourne is truly special and
not to be missed.

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